


Something Bad

by Imanerdandliketoread



Series: Pinescone Week 2019 [1]
Category: Gravity Falls, Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Mabel has a girlfriend but who she is is not specified, Mild Angst, Swapping bodies, dorks being dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-31 08:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21127409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imanerdandliketoread/pseuds/Imanerdandliketoread
Summary: Wirt is concerned about Dipper and learns that sometimes stalking your boyfriend is good. Also, that rugs can be evil.Dipper and Mabel accidentally switch bodies while trying to dispose of the body-swapping carpet and end up losing it.Alternatively titled Rivers Can Be Dangerous





	Something Bad

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This was written for Pinescone Week 2019, and is based on the prompt "Carpet Diem" from day 1. This isn't the first time I've written Pinescone, but it is the first time I've been confident enough to finish a project and publish it. Personally, I'm not super happy with how it turned out but I couldn't think of where to take this and I wanted to have this be (mostly) a surprise for my writing buddy (hi Hannah!). I was so tempted to title this Something Bad Happening in Gravity Falls, based on that one song from Wicked, but it's less Gravity Falls and just the twins so I decided against it. Comments, questions, critiques all adored, and I hope you enjoy!

Wirt is sure he did something wrong.  _ Certain _ of it. 

Even when he’s focused on the garish tourist trap he calls home or neck deep in investigating that day’s paranormal debacle, Dipper  _ always _ makes sure to set some time out of his day or his week to spend time with Wirt. But recently, he seems distant. They talk sure, but it isn’t as personal, just  _ how was your day _ ’s and  _ everything’s fine _ ’s. Dipper never says that everything is fine unless he’s hiding something. And the last time that happened it was because Dipper had accidentally spilled fairy wine on Wirt's favorite deep blue sweater, turning it a garish, sickly orange color. 

Other than not talking to him, Dipper had refrained from PDA and any other form of affection. No cheek kisses, no hand-holding, no games of footsie under the table during dinner. It wasn’t totally unusual at first; sometimes Dipper was too overwhelmed for much physical contact or he was distracted by something. But he would always tell Wirt ahead of time, as to avoid unintentionally lashing out at him for making him uncomfortable. 

The only conclusion he could come to is that he must’ve done something to upset Dipper. Neither of them was skilled at talking about their feelings, so Wirt knew that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. The only reasonable solution, to Wirt, was to follow Dipper to see if he could reveal what the issue was. 

The first day was rather uneventful, at least by Gravity Falls’ standards. Dipper gave tours at the Mystery shack the first half of the day, then switched to wandering around the forest, a new journal in hand. He didn’t get home until almost seven, the sun setting behind the trees as he stumbled into the kitchen, throwing a “Hi worry-Wirt” over his shoulder as the threw the fridge door open and grabbed some prepackaged snack. Worry-Wirt? Dipper must’ve been spending a lot of time with Mabel; that was her special nickname for him. 

The next day started off the same. Dressed in his dorky black suit and eyepatch, with his magic-eight-ball-topped cane in hand, Dipper gave tours to tourists clad in tacky Hawaiian shirts and kakis taking all too many photos of exhibits that were painfully fake. Then, handing the care of the shop over to Soos after the lunchtime crowd, he joined Mabel out front, both of them wandering into the forest. Where in the world were they going? Wirt still had no clue, so he followed them, trailing at least fifty feet behind the twins at all times. 

He felt a little dumb, stalking his boyfriend and his twin sister like this, crouching under bushes and ducking behind wider trees whenever one of them looked behind. But his curiosity and concern outweighed his nervousness about being caught, so he continued creeping behind the pair, avoiding twigs and piles of crunchy leaves. 

Eventually, though, the twins stumbled across a clearing, a stream cutting through it. Then, Dipper shouted “Dipdop! We found it! We just gotta find the carpet, then we can switch back!” At least, Wirt thought that Dipper was speaking. But, the voice was the only thing that sounded like Dipper. The tone reminded him more of Mabel. And did he say Dipdop? Wasn’t that a nickname for Dipper? Maybe he had just misheard, maybe Mabel was speaking, and he jus—WHY DID DIPPER PULL OUT A GRAPPLING HOOK?

With the grappling hook, Dipper aimed at a weirdly colored lump in the water and fired. Oh dog, that water was deep! The hook zoomed through the water, embedding itself in the lump that felt like almost a hundred feet below the surface. Rocketing back through the water, the grappling hook and freaky mass flew through the air after surfacing, before flopping to the ground with a wet squish. 

Dozens of questions raced through Wirt’s mind. Why were Dipper and Mabel looking for the thing? What was the thing? Why was the stream so deep? Where were they? What did Dipper mean when he said ‘switch back?’ Why Did Dipper have Mabel’s Grappling hook? What was going on? 

Wirt’s unending stream of questions was interrupted by both twins grabbing a corner of the wet, brown mass and unrolling it. It was… a carpet? A shitty looking, decades-old, fraying-at-the-edges carpet. After chucking it on the ground, the twins stepped onto the rug and shifted around awkwardly on it for a few seconds before smacking their hands together in a weird handshake-slash-high five. Wirt could see—crouched behind some thorny bush as he was—a static charge spreading from the point of contact across their bodies.

Flinching away, Mabel shouted “I’m back baby! You can finally stare longingly into your boyfriend’s eyes or whatever you two nerds like to do for fun!” She playfully punched Dipper’s shoulder before laughing. 

Wirt was very confused. So confused that he forgot he was supposed to be hiding, popped out from behind the bush, and squeaked out “What in the  _ hell _ is going on here?” 

Dipper gasped, whipped around, and stuttered out a confused “Wirt! What’re you doing here? I mean, uh, we were just looking for this rug that we dropped! Everything’s fine!” He flinched as he said that, and Wirt knew it was because Dipper knew that was one of his tells. He sighed. “Wirt, this is going to sound a little crazy, but it’s just Gravity Falls level crazy, alright? The carpet has enough static charge to swap minds between people, and when Mabel and I were trying to sell it to a gnome, about a week ago, we accidentally switched bodies and dropped the carpet and it fell into the murder-stream and luckily it got caught on a rock but neither of us could reach it, even with the grappling hook, so we had to ask Grunkle Ford for help, but he’s hundreds of miles from any landmasses in the Atlantic Ocean so we couldn't easily reach him and then when we did, we had to upgrade the grappling hook ourselves, but one of the parts we needed was  _ so _ hard to come by and it took a while so we had to pretend to be each other but now we’re back so everything is fine!” 

That was a lot of information to process. Wirt took a second to think about how differently Dipper had been behaving, and how that was apparently Mabel in Dipper’s body. “Huh. that makes a lot of sense actually. It’s leagues better than me messing up and you hating me forever.” Usually, Wirt kept those self-deprecating thoughts to himself, but he was too relieved to think about how worried Dipper can get when he talks like that. 

Mabel broke the awkward silence by shouting “Well! This has been an eventful week! I’m going to take a shower and kiss my girlfriend and then sleep for a day! Adios!” She bounced past both boys, speed jogging in the general direction of the town. 

Spurred into action by Mabel’s abrupt exit, Wirt stumbled forwards, stopping a foot away from Dipper. “I’m glad you’re alright. And also in your own body. And that I didn’t try to kiss your sister while she was in your body. But mostly, that you’re alright.” His lips twitched up into a half-hearted attempt at a smile. 

Dipper's eyes met Wirt's hesitantly as he awkwardly smiled back. "I'm glad I'm back too. Being Mabel is hard. I mean, I thought being related to her was difficult, but then I had to _ be _ the loud, more engaging one, and everyone wanted to talk to me  _ all the time _ and it was horrible! So many people just randomly hugged me, and I was expected to reciprocate? And I couldn't even tell you about it because I didn't want to send you running for the hills." He sighed. "And now I am so tired. Can we just go home and cuddle or something?"

Leaning down to kiss Dipper's nose, Wirt chuckled. "Sounds great. I'll make us some hot chocolate and you can tell me all about this freaky rug and the murder-stream and everything else vaguely paranormal involved in this body-switching fiasco."

Dipper hummed in agreement as Wirt linked their elbows and they set off for the Mystery Shack. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. Check out my Tumblr for more Pinescone and also DBH and other random fandom stuff at endoftheworldpaul. Bye.
> 
> OH also the river mentioned in this is inspired by the Bolton Strid, the most deadly river in the world! If you're partial to real-world spooky stuff like that, I suggest checking it out!


End file.
